This week in tech: Amazon 'fired on all cylinders' in Q2; Apple, PayPal sink

investing.com:

By Louis Juricic and Sarina Isaacs

Investing.com — Here is your weekly Pro Recap on the biggest headlines out of tech this week: Amazon triumphs; AMD shares are whipsawed; and Apple, Qualcomm, and PayPal disappoint.

InvestingPro subscribers get scorching tech headlines like these in real time. Never miss another market-moving alert.

Amazon (NASDAQ:AMZN) surged 8% Friday after the tech giant blew Q2 estimates out of the water and nicely topped guidance revenue, riding high off strength in its cloud business.

Amazon said its profit came to $0.65 for the quarter — $0.30 better than the consensus of $0.35 — on revenue of $134.4 billion, which also surpassed the $131.45B average analyst estimate.

Amazon Web Services, which comprised 70% of its Q2 operating profit, jumped 12% to $22.1B — ahead of estimates for 10.2% growth. The company said this surge came as customers «started shifting from cost optimization to new workload deployment.»

For the third quarter, the company expects revenue of $138B to $143B vs. estimates for $138.28B.

Bernstein called the print «a defining moment» during CEO Andy Jassy's tenure, which started about two years ago, and hiked the company's price target by $20 to $175 per share. Bernstein added:

Amazon fired on all cylinders: AWS finally stabilizing and now a coiled spring; Retail performance hanging in with a weakened consumer; N. American retail margins are back to pre-pandemic levels and accelerating alongside compressing fulfillment windows — impressive; and aggregate operating profits are up and to the right.

BofA said Amazon remains «our top stock in sector» given Amazon's retail cost improvement efforts, saying it expects «several more quarters of margin benefits from increasing retail